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His eyes glassy, with a halo of despair and resignation, convey the same crushing desperation seen in many other eyes in an area of the Bahamas known as The Mudd.

It is one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Dorian, located on Grand Abaco Island. Commonly described as a shantytown, The Mudd is populated, in overwhelming majority, by Haitian migrants who have settled in this place for decades.

Evidence of that horrific destruction is seen in the shocking images captured by AccuWeather: the pieces of residences of a Haitian community that once stood; a shipping container about 45 feet long scattered everywhere as if it were made of aluminum foil; and hundreds of Haitian migrants, who for years have battled against cultural differences and the stigma of being the “other” and are now trying to survive the aftermath of Dorian.

However, the study points out, Haitian migrants are constantly associated with illegal immigration status, poor education and poverty, which makes it impossible for them to be able to integrate into Bahamian society and be able to aspire to a better quality of life than they left in their native country.

Language barriers also prevent Haitian migrants from fully participating in society. In this case, this barrier could have also taken away the possibility of knowing the monstrous hurricane they would face.

“They probably did not believe what was going on. They don’t even move. And many people died, ” one of the lucky Haitian survivors who was traveling through The Mudd told AccuWeather, his voice splattered with hints of a Creole accent.

These are the musings of the survivors, many of whom have been temporarily located on the outskirts of a municipal building and have created a makeshift camp where they gather the few pieces of clothing they managed to rescue and hang their laundry in the tree branches and on power lines.

Also, they leave The Mudd because violence has begun to take over the place. Looting has occurring in broad daylight, and many fear that, due to the lack of government presence in the area, chaos will unfold and more people will die.

“This is it,” one islander told Petramala. “This is the calm before it just all goes to hell.”

“Is like a Western town. You hear gun shots all night long. Everyone is scavenging what they can. The need to get here and set up martial law and shut down this town down, ” Shane Cook, a resident of the area, said in an interview with AccuWeather.